Swansea Girls (43 page)

‘Our baby! It goes without saying that I want it. God, you didn’t think, you didn’t try to ...’

Overcome by his reaction on top of days of worry, she burst into tears. ‘I didn’t know what to think ...’

‘You’re my girl.’ Holding her, he kissed away her tears. ‘I’ll look after you, Helen, just as I said I would, I promise. I just have to work a few things out. But what the hell, we could go tonight ...’

‘Tonight!’

‘Tonight,’ he repeated. Given what Martin would say when he found out what he’d done, the best time seemed the soonest. ‘And we’ll survive, Helen. I promise you, I’ll take good care of you and my son.’

‘It could be a daughter.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s going to be a boy, you’ll see. Now, I’m going to wash, change and pack and write a note for my brother. It might be as well if you write one to your father so he doesn’t worry. Don’t forget to put on warm, waterproof clothes. It’s going to be freezing in this weather on the back of the bike. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and the minute we can sneak out without anyone noticing – we’ll be off.’

‘Are you in a hurry to get home, Katie?’

‘No, Mr Williams is on afternoon shift and Lily is seeing Joe.’

‘In that case, if you don’t mind, I’ll call in at the warehouse. I want to check it’s secure and nothing urgent has cropped up.’ He didn’t tell her he was thinking more of messages from his solicitor than suppliers. He wouldn’t be happy until all the negatives and prints taken that afternoon were in Martin Davies’s hands, and he had a signed piece of paper to say no others were in existence. ‘But I don’t expect you to do anything – understand.’

‘Yes, Mr Griffiths, and thank you for taking me to the cemetery.’

‘You sure there’s nothing wrong?’ He gave her a sideways look, as he pulled into the loading bay.

‘Can I come in with you, please? I could check the office while you check the warehouse.’

‘Mr Williams told you that your father could be out any day?’ he asked perceptively.

‘Yes.’

‘Come on then, I’ll lock the door behind us.’

John switched on the warehouse lights as Katie charged up the stairs. Cold, wet, dark winter days weren’t good for trade. It wasn’t yet six thirty and the fact that everything had been put in its place and the warehouse securely locked said it all. He doubted they’d had a customer in after five o’clock. After checking all the floors, he double locked the doors and went to the office. Katie was sitting at her desk, her head bent over an open file.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Checking a delivery note against our original order. They’ve sent us too many cutlery sets, the expensive solid silver ...’

‘You can put it right in the morning and give them a telling off while you’re at it.’ He’d been amazed by Katie’s business manner. Insecurity and diffidence vanished once she picked up the telephone or met a rep. Consistently polite and pleasant, she never hesitated to tell a supplier exactly what she thought of them if she suspected they were trying to offload second-rate goods, or more stock than had been ordered.

‘Sorry, Mr Griffiths ...’

‘And stop apologising.’ He sank into the guest chair beside her. He had a sudden aversion to the prospect of an evening at home. He didn’t doubt Helen would be well enough to have Jack around, Lily and Joe would be discussing their engagement party and after the day he’d just had, he didn’t feel like coping with young love.

‘You hungry?’ he asked Katie.

‘Not really.’

‘I forgot, you’ll want to be with your boyfriend. Come on, I’ll take you home.’

‘Adam Jordan is not my boyfriend,’ she burst out emphatically. ‘No matter what he says, he is not ...’

‘Katie ...’

‘Why does everyone think he’s my boyfriend,’ she shouted, ‘when ...’ Her voice trailed as she looked at him.

He tried to smile sympathetically and reassuringly. One of the first things he’d discovered about Katie was that she had absolutely no confidence in her own looks or personality beyond her work capabilities and Adam Jordan was an exceptionally handsome young man, just the sort to make an insecure girlfriend jealous. Presuming that she and Adam had quarrelled, he murmured, ‘I’m sorry, Katie. But if it’s any consolation, all young people have spats when they start courting. You and Adam will make it up ...’

‘There’s nothing to make up!’ Paternal understanding from the man she loved was more than she could bear. No matter what it cost, she felt she simply had to tell him the truth. ‘I hate Adam Jordan!’

‘Katie, if he’s done something to you ...’

‘He’s done nothing to me because I wouldn’t let him. But that didn’t stop him from telling me there was something wrong with me just because I wouldn’t let him follow me around and kiss and paw me every chance he got. And it didn’t help that everyone thought he was my boyfriend or kept saying how lucky I was, just because Adam’s good-looking. As if I should be grateful that he decided to pay a plain little mouse like me some attention. I can’t stand Adam Jordan. I can’t stand him touching me, or even near me because ...’ She bit her lip so hard she drew blood.

‘Those feelings are understandable after what happened to your mother but it doesn’t have to be like that between a man and a woman. Lots of married couples are happy ...’

‘Please, Mr Griffiths.’ She looked into his eyes, begging him to see the love etched in hers, so she wouldn’t have to spell it out for him.

‘Katie, if there’s anything I can do to help I will. But I think you should talk about this to a woman. Mrs Hunt, or even one of the girls ...’

‘You don’t understand,’ she threw all caution to the wind, risking his respect and the job she loved. ‘I love you. Only
you.
I go to sleep every night thinking about what I’m going to say to you the next day and when the next day comes I lose my nerve and say none of the things I imagined myself saying the night before. And all the time you are kind and caring, but only in the way you are with everyone who works here. I’m not a child, Mr Griffiths. I’m a woman and I love you. It doesn’t matter that you’re married or think I’m a child because I can’t help the way I feel. I’ve tried to hide it because I didn’t want to embarrass you again like I did that time on the cliff top but ...’

‘Katie ...’

‘Please, don’t try to be kind,’ she whispered, ‘not now ... I’ll go ...’

As she turned, he stepped forward and opened his arms.

Afterwards, John had no idea how he and Katie got from her desk to the sofa in the alcove. Or how long he held her while she dried her tears, or how they came to kiss. He only knew that he hadn’t been wrong about the way the first kiss she’d given him had made him feel.

Chapter Twenty-three

‘That’s the buffet menu sorted.’ Lily closed the notebook she’d used to list the food. ‘Mrs Jordan’s offered to make the cake and Uncle Roy thinks we should let her. Her cakes are really good and ever since she did that evening class in icing they look as professional as any that come out of Eynon’s the baker’s.’

‘Dad’s ordered a barrel of beer, sherry and champagne for the toast.’

‘Uncle Roy thinks the bride’s family should provide everything.’

‘And my father thinks that’s an old-fashioned idea, and we should share the cost.’ Grabbing her hand as she tried to walk past, he pulled her down on to the sofa next to him. ‘Somehow, all of a sudden, this seems to be more complicated than you and me getting together. Half the street appear to be involved, as well as our families.’

‘Wait until we start organising the wedding.’

‘That I leave to you.’

‘Coward.’

‘Does it matter what kind of wedding we have as long as we’re together afterwards?’ Pinning her against the sofa, he kissed her.

‘Not to me,’ she murmured, returning his kiss, ‘but Uncle Roy will want to feel that he’s doing everything right.’ She shifted uncomfortably. ‘This feels as if it’s stuffed with bricks.’

‘It probably is. Want to go downstairs?’

‘Aren’t Helen and Jack there?’

‘Probably, there’s always your house.’

‘And Mrs Lannon.’

‘Why did your uncle have to pick the most meddlesome woman in the street to be your housekeeper.’

‘Because she’s the only widow without ties.’

He kissed her again. ‘Compromise, we’ll stay up here for another half hour, then go down and throw little sis and Jack out. She should have an early night anyway, seeing as how she was too ill to go to work today.’

Jack looked at the case Helen had smuggled into the basement while Joe had been eating his tea and shook his head. ‘There’s absolutely no way I can strap anything that size on to the back of my bike. We’d end up toppling into a ditch.’

‘I only packed essentials.’

‘You’ll have to make do with less of them. What the hell do you call essential anyway?’ Dropping Helen’s suitcase on to the sofa he flicked the catches and opened it. ‘Five pairs of high-heeled shoes!’

‘They’re different colours. I couldn’t make up my mind what dress to get married in.’

‘So you need five pairs of shoes?’

‘Yes,’ she answered defiantly.

‘How many dresses do you have in here – and no lying?’

‘Twelve.’

Taking the half-empty rucksack from his back he tipped it out on the floor. ‘One set of clean underwear, two pairs of socks, two shirts and a pair of trousers. Given that women need more things, you can bring twice as much provided you can get it into this bag and you can carry it on your back. I’ll pack my stuff in this.’ He produced a tiny suitcase less than a quarter of the size of hers.

‘But I need ...’

‘Are we eloping, or not?’

‘Who’s eloping?’

They turned to see Joe and Lily standing in the open doorway.

Immersed in a new, overwhelming and strangely humbling world of fulfilment, John kissed Katie’s small, perfect breast. As his lips moved downwards over her soft, extraordinarily white skin, the fever that had consumed him began to ebb and the enormity of what he’d done sink in.

‘Katie ... I ... Oh, God, what have I done? I didn’t mean for this to happen.’ Moving away from her, he sat up on the edge of the sofa and buried his face in his hands.

‘Is it me, Mr Griffiths? Did I do anything wrong?’

‘No, Katie, you didn’t do anything wrong,’ he mumbled wretchedly, ‘apart from be born twenty years too early.’

‘I’m sorry ...’

‘It’s me who should be sorry. I took advantage of you.’ Reaching for his clothes, he separated his underpants from his trousers and pulled them on. ‘You’re a young innocent girl, a neighbour, a friend of my daughter’s. I should have protected, not seduced, you. I should have exercised more control.’ Stepping into his trousers, he fastened the fly. He turned back and looked at her, shame almost – but not quite – overshadowed by a breathtaking feeling of love.

‘Why? I wanted it to happen, Mr Griffiths.’

‘After what I’ve just done, don’t you think you should call me John? And nothing can alter the fact that you’re eighteen years old, a child ...’

‘I am not a child and
we
did it, not just you.’ Furious, she rose to her knees. Acutely disturbed by her slim, almost painfully thin, nakedness, he handed her the clothes he had helped remove such a short time before.

‘I’m thirty-eight, Katie. You may not be a child, but the twenty years between us makes me think of you that way. Compared to you I’m an old man – and I’m not even free to ask you to marry me ...’

‘Marry you,’ she whispered, as if marriage were some magical state.

‘You’d marry me?’ He whirled around and stared at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.

‘I’ve imagined it, but I never thought it could happen.’

‘That make sense? When you’re a young woman of thirty I’ll be fifty ...’

‘And when you’re ninety, I’ll be seventy,’ she smiled defiantly.

‘It’s a wonderful, impossible dream.’

‘Because you don’t want to marry me?’

‘Because I’d ruin your life.’

‘Without you my life would be ruined anyway. I’ll never love anyone else. Never. Until you I thought all men were like Dad. But you’re kind, gentle, and ...’ Trusting and unembarrassed, she looked him in the eye. ‘When Adam tried to kiss me I felt dirty and sick. I told Lily I never wanted to get married, but what we just did together was – I can’t describe it – it’s the most marvellous, fantastic thing that has ever happened to me. I never thought it could be like that, not after Mam and Dad ...’

‘It was special for me too.’ John looked down at the shirt he was holding, lest she see just how special mirrored in his eyes. ‘But marriage is much more than just sex, Katie. It’s living with someone day and night, being with them, watching them grow old and ugly, and let’s face it, I’m not very pretty now.’

‘Yes, you are.’ Kneeling on the sofa, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her face against his chest. ‘You’re beautiful where it counts, on the inside.’

‘Have you considered what your brothers and Roy Williams will say if they find out about this – and that’s without bringing the women of this street into it.’

‘My brothers want me to be happy.’

He held her in his arms for a moment. Naked, she felt as light and fragile as a bird. ‘But do you think you really could be happy with me?’

‘I couldn’t be happy with anyone else, John.’

‘Then we’ll have to find a way round our problems.’

‘You want me?’ she whispered incredulously.

‘I think I’ve just proved how much I want you, Katie. My head tells me I should let you go and find a younger and better man, but my heart tells me to never let you go.’

‘You really love me?’ She lifted her head to be kissed and he gave her all the reassurance he could before holding her firmly at arm’s length.

‘But until my divorce is finalised you have to realise that we can’t tell anyone about us, not if you are to keep your reputation. If my wife gets wind of this, she’ll drag your name through the courts. As it is, she’s going to think I only wanted a divorce so I could marry you. But,’ he kissed the top of her head, ‘if it does mean that we can eventually be together, it will be the best thing I’ve ever done. Time to dress, I have a lot of thinking to do, and that’s best done when you’re not around, especially in the state you are now.’

She sorted out her underwear and clipped on her suspender belt. ‘I’m afraid you’ll feel differently about me tomorrow,’ she murmured as she began to roll on her stockings.

‘I won’t,’ he smiled, ‘but I may have difficulty in believing what’s just happened.’

‘I’ll keep trying to convince you that I love you.’

He fell serious. ‘Katie, you know about my divorce.’

She nodded.

‘And you’ve probably gathered that my marriage wasn’t a normal one.’

‘I knew that you and Mrs Griffiths had separate bedrooms.’

‘But for the moment we are still married. The solicitor warned it could take a year or more to finalise everything and I won’t risk you being hurt by scandal or exposed as “the other woman” before I can marry you ...’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘I would, Katie. It’s going to be hard enough for us after we make it legal, without inviting gossip before.’

‘But I can still work here. See you every day? Steal time like now ...’

‘And make plans.’ He looked at her, scarcely daring to believe that in only a year she could be his – if she didn’t change her mind. But did he have the right to allow her to sacrifice her young life to his ...

‘A year seems forever,’ she murmured disconsolately.

‘I won’t hold you to any promises, if you should change your mind.’

‘Don’t say that.’ She hugged him with all the strength she could muster. ‘Please, don’t ever say that again.’

‘I’ll try not to, Katie, but it’s not going to be easy to accept that someone like you can love a cripple like me.’

‘I’ll make you believe it,’ she insisted fiercely. ‘You’ll see.’

He kissed her again. ‘Yes, sweetheart, I’m beginning to believe that you will.’

‘Think of Dad, Helen, you can’t just walk out of the house like this.’ Joe spoke to his sister but he was watching Jack.

‘If Dad knew what I’d done he’d want me out of the house.’

‘Jack, what have you got to say about this?’

Jack turned aside, unable to meet Joe’s searching gaze.

‘You’re pregnant, Helen.’

‘What if I am, Joe?’ she retorted angrily. ‘It’s no one’s business but ours.’

‘All right, fine, it’s your business. As I heard the word “elope” I take it you’re going to Gretna Green.’

‘I’m not the sort of boy who leaves a girl in the lurch,’ Jack bit back belligerently.

‘And after you’ve married my sister, what then? How will you support her and the baby when it comes?’

‘I’ll find rooms and a job that pays more ...’

‘And when you have to do your National Service?’

‘I’ll send her money.’

‘In Scotland, away from her family and friends.’

Jack fell silent.

‘If you won’t talk to Dad, Helen, at least let me. Can’t you see this needs more sorting than a quick-fix trip to Gretna Green?’

‘I won’t give up Jack.’

Lily sat next to Helen and held her hand as a tear fell from her eye.

‘And I won’t leave her.’ Jack squared up to Joe.

‘You’re a pair of bloody idiots.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk.’

‘What do you mean?’ Joe stood protectively close to Lily, half expecting his sister to say something derogatory about her.

‘You’re not even Dad’s son.’

‘What?’

‘It’s true, Joe. I overheard Dad and Mam talking before she left. She only married Dad to give her bastard a name. And you’re the bastard, Joe.’

‘There’s lot of noise coming from down here. I could hear you upstairs.’ John stood in the passageway looking from the four of them to the suitcases. ‘Are you all running away from home, or only some of you?’

‘This is where I take you home, Lily.’ Joe went to the door.

‘See you tomorrow, Helen.’ Lily followed him out.

‘You heard her ...’

‘You know Helen. She was angry at being caught out; she wanted to hurt you.’

‘You think so?’

‘I think you have to talk to your father before you do anything else, Joe.’

‘What if it’s true, what if ...’

‘Talk to him, Joe.’ She hugged him but for the first time he didn’t respond. ‘It’s half past ten. I have to go home. Do you want to come with me?’

He shook his head.

‘Joe ...’

‘I need to be alone, Lily. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She looked at him for a moment, wishing she could help, then she walked away.

‘Right, Jack.’ John sat in the chair Joe had vacated. ‘Are you man enough to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to drag it out of Helen?’

For over twenty minutes the only sound in the room was Jack’s voice. Helen knew, because she spent the whole time staring at the second hand on her wristwatch, watching it jerk slowly round and round.

At first Jack was blustering and defiant, almost as though he were trying to goad John into throwing him out. Then, as John remained silent and it became clear that he was prepared to listen to what Jack had to say, Jack’s voice gradually grew softer and calmer. ‘I love Helen, Mr Griffiths,’ he said finally, ‘and I’ll do whatever I have to, to give her everything she has here.’

‘You won’t do that on a labourer’s wage, Jack.’

‘I won’t always be a labourer.’

‘I’d say the likelihood of you having the money or time to train for anything better when you’ve a wife and baby to support is negligible. Helen, you haven’t said anything.’

‘I love Jack and I’m going to marry him. If you try to stop me I’ll go to court ...’

‘I never said anything about stopping you.’

‘You’d give us your consent?’ Jack asked in amazement.

‘It appears to me you’ve given me little choice if Helen is to keep anything of her reputation.’

‘I’m sorry ...’

‘I’m glad you have the grace to apologise,’ John murmured, feeling like a hypocrite after what he’d just done with Katie, ‘Although I think you’d both better be prepared for some wagging tongues once the old wives have dusted off their arithmetic.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘It’s time you began to care, Helen, if not for your own sake then for the sake of your child.’

‘Sorry,’ she muttered, shamefaced.

‘I’ll be honest with you, Helen. I realise I haven’t done a first-class job of bringing you up. I thought your mother was too hard on you and I tried to compensate by being too lenient. As a result you had your own way far too often, particularly when it came to things like clothes and money. Frankly, I’m convinced you don’t know the value of a pound but I also think that if you marry Jack you’re about to find out. And you, Jack, everyone says you’re wild ... No, you’ve had your chance to talk,’ he continued when Jack tried to interrupt, ‘now it’s my turn. Well, anyone who can sit down in front of me in my own house and say “I’ve made your daughter pregnant, Mr Griffiths” has courage. And I’ve always admired men who face up to their responsibilities, but I think it’s naive of you to believe that you can look after my daughter and her child without help. I have a proposal to make. It may not suit you but I want you to think about it. First, you marry Helen.’